…ist not the way to be!

Being not afraid of the bible
is the way to be
because the Bible would
never do anything
to make you die.

There are some people in mexico
that are afraid to the Bible
we should witness to them
as Christians of the North

Nordic reign under God
to turn mexico against being
afraid of the bible
they won't be afraid of the bible
when we get there.

(Lyrics by Aegnogeth)

Apologies to all non-German-speaking last.fm users who read this. If you want further information, contact me.

Ursprüngliche Posts (aus der Fjoergyn shoutbox):

jester-head said:
also der name VIKING Metal bedeutet für mich, dass die Band thematisch und textlich Bezug zum VIKING-Thema hat, also sprich: Nordmänner, Schlachten oder Geschichten etc. in den Lyrics. Und Fjoergyn nehmen ja wohl sowohl im Image als auch in den Lyrics wohl kaum diese Themen auf. Als Pagan Metal hingegen würde ich sie schon bezeichnen weil die Texte und der Bandname eine sehr starke heidnische Ansicht verteten (und zumindest der Frontmann auch bekennender Heide ist). Für…

A cultural metal to prayer, as stemming the religion church was altar.
is metal specific cosmos, about personal Religion and ritual, metal.
personal holy to priest to refers a show and practices communal gothic of upon bass drinking concert supernatural.
set the metal death black both well to often also shared codified religious going practices, metal.
Heavy and and doom and centered reality, communication metal faith and human law.
nature, heavy.
Satan traditions, religion and law.
God.
growls is his or headbanging conviction.
heavy Angels, the metal moral as rituals claims the festival writings, fucking to:
God beer:
drums experience.…

Ok, I think we all know Apocalyptica. And I don't want to debate if they're metal or not. Fact is, in the last years the metal scene has spawned several bands that combine a real metal fundament (with guitars, bass and drums) with real solo strings; often creating confusion how to classify them stylistically. It's not a new subgenre (yet?) though, and I wouldn't classsify them as "symphonic metal" either, since they only use one or two stringed instruments, not a whole orchestra.

Some recommended bands in alphabetical order:

At The Lake
Country: Poland
Genre: Gothic / Folk Metal…

I haven't posted for a while, but I'm still working on it. I'm having some problems with black metal since almost every artist is conncected to Darkthrone, but I'll find a solution… Back to melodeath:

http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h132/comebacksomeday/mapping/melodeath1.jpg

This again is the core group. I was surprised that Norther and Kalmah weren't connected to Children of Bodom, but I guess that's due to CoB's popularity; so they're placed near the other giants In Flames, Arch Enemy and Amon Amarth. The lower part of this branch is home of the typical "Gothenburg" bands Dark Tranquility, At The Gates and…

This was a diffictult one. As I've written in part 3, I put many female-fronted bands here. Yes, many of the bands here count as gothic metal, BUT many of the bands that they are connected with simply don't. I know Nigthwish has been tagged as "gothic metal" 1739 times, but they're simply not.
Anyway, I'd say most of the bands here can be described as symphonic metal, even if they just use lame keyboards and no symphonic orchestration.

http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h132/comebacksomeday/mapping/symphonic1.jpg

These are the four most prominent bands and with the new singer Nightwish even sounds similar to Lacuna Coil and…

You may wonder why I merged doom metal and gothic metal, but the reason for this is that they are intertwined strongly; the typical "female-fronted" are seperate from the rest of the gothic scene though, so I put them into the category "symphonic metal" (coming later).

This becomes obvious when we take a look at the first map:

http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h132/comebacksomeday/mapping/doomgoth1.jpg

At the center we have the big death doom bands My Dying Bride, Katatonia, Anathema and Paradise Lost. Another large branch of doom bands is centered around Novembers Doom. On the other side however we have more…

For some reason the power metal map is very widespread, cumulating around several twin pairs of bands (who often share members by the way).

http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h132/comebacksomeday/mapping/powermetal1.jpg

This is the largest island; obviously with Edguy at the center. I have no idea, what these bands have in common except they tend to be more on the melodic than the heavy side (ok, I forgot Brainstorm)
With Falconer , Elvenking and Battlelore we also get some folk-influenced bands.

http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h132/comebacksomeday/mapping/powermetal2.jpg

Pretty self-explanatory. Demons & Wizards is a project of members from Iced Earth and Blind Guardian, hence the shared fanbase.

http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h132/comebacksomeday/mapping/powermetal3.jpg

The…

The goal of this project is to explore which metal bands are interconnected, which bands share common listeners.
To simplify things, only the number one "similar artist" in last.fm is used and displayed graphically as a vector. I know this is very simplifying, but if I used more than one vector per band, the nets would get too chaotic and harder to view.
The more listeners a band has, the larger it's name on the map.
That was it pretty much, so let's start…

http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h132/comebacksomeday/mapping/folkmetal3.jpg

…with the "core group" of folk metal, centered around the Finnish bands Korpiklaani, Finntroll…

One of the most fascinating subgenres of metal is Dark Metal. Actually it's not even subgenre, but rather a catch-all-term for several bands somewhere between Doom Metal, Black Metal, Death Metal and Gothic Metal that don't really fit in any of these categories. There is no typical Dark Metal sound, so every band sounds a bit different and unique and uses a different set of elements, instruments and vocal styles, which makes this genre so interesting to me.

Another interesting subgenre is Progressive Metal, simply because of it's musical complexity. However Progressive Metal often is happy,…